Sacred Sermons of the City: Kendrick Lamar, Faith-Based Health Messaging, and Urban Wellness Narratives

Abstract: We explore Kendrick Lamar's 2025 studio album GNX as a faith-based example of health education in the lives of urban Black communities. Grounded in sermonic structure and theological themes, Lamar's work provides a glimpse into how hip-hop can operate as both a cultural and a public health platform. Using lyrical analysis, theological inquiry, and behavioral theory, the paper explores Kendrick Lamar's work contextually as a public health narrative of faith-based preaching with messaging that addresses trauma, masculinity, intimacy, and intergenerational healing. Drawing from frameworks such as cultural storytelling, public health's Health Belief Model, and Christian doctrine found in Black pastoral theology, this exploration demonstrates how GNX models emotional literacy, mental health resilience, communal agency, and cultural survival. The album and tracks such as "Wacced Out Murals," "Squabble Up," "Reincarnated," and "Man at the Garden" are examined for their storied sermonic progressions of confession, indictment, affirmation, and vow, towards a better understanding of their corresponding health education and promotion implications. Like a collection of sermons, GNX's collection of songs expand the reach of Lamar's faith-based public health messaging to audiences that are historically underserved by traditional health education. His work offers an insight into health education that bypasses clinical and inertially stagnant practices of population health messaging. His music reflects the contemporary realities of Black health inequities and creates a portable liturgical space where listeners are invited into processes of reflection, empowerment, and communal care towards increased health status.